Posted
by
timothy
on Sunday November 14, 2010 @10:21AM
from the private-sector-bailout dept.

DeviceGuru writes "In what's claimed as the largest-ever single electric vehicle commitment, GE plans to acquire 25,000 electric vehicles by 2015. The buying spree will initially involve 12,000 GM vehicles, beginning with GM's Chevy Volt in 2011. By converting most of its own 30,000-strong global fleet, and promoting EV adoption among its 65,000 global fleet customers, GE hopes to be in a strong position to help deploy the vehicles' supporting infrastructure, including charging stations, circuit protection equipment, and transformers. In contrast to the all-electric Nissan Leaf, the Volt implements a small gas engine, which can recharge the vehicle's battery to extend its range beyond the 100 mile limit of all-electric cars like the Leaf, leading some to question the Volt's EV credentials."

I was wondering for a long time why fleet vehicles that stop and start every couple blocks were not electric since it seems like electricity would work best in well managed systems more than for consumers. But instead it's the personal vehicle that is the first to do this at scale. I suspect the answer to my query is pretty basic: namely delivery vehicles have to travel more miles on one route than electric storage can sustain. Or does someone have a better explanation of this hole.

UPS [autoblog.com] runs a few hundred hybrids (granted, a drop in the bucket) plus 20,000 other "green" vehicles (whatever that means) in their fleet.

I would have thought that with constant stop-and-go driving, regenerative braking would be a huge win. The article says it's a 35% fuel savings. But apparently even that isn't enough for them to switch all their new vehicle purchases to hybrid.

Not necessarily. You'd be surprised how much more affordable things are if you pay in cash. You can always make yourself "loan" payments as soon as you pay for the vehicle. By the time your ready to replace it a couple decades later you could easily have that kind of money.

I say this to everyone I know, yet they still lease or get loans for cars.

If you need a car, but a cheap used one and then put the payments of the car you want in the bank. Then in 5 years buy it out right and you will still have money left over. Plus you can likely sell or trade that used car.

...but then you have to drive the POS cheap used car for *five years*. I'm as reasonable as anybody about spending money wisely, but I want a nice car *now*, and I'm willing to pay a premium (both in overall cost and in interest) to do so.

From www.mychevroletvolt.com : "The First 200,000 Chevrolet Volt’s qualify for $7500 in federal tax credits (After which there is a phase out schedule)."

So this consumes rebates from a limited pool that may have gone to individuals. I don't necessarily have a problem with that: first come, first served I guess. I like that GE is doing this to jump start infrastructure sales rather than a one time tax benefit.

It'll likely even out. GE is planning to work on the equipment that most electric care owners are going to want. Having better equipment and possibly more affordable could very easily result in a lower cost of ownership that would hit $7500.

Switching their fleet to plugin vehicles makes a lot of sense for GE, especially in the long run. If it actually helps accelerate the rate of plugin vehicle adoption, electricity demand could increase significantly. GE would absolutely love that... it would probably help them sell more nuclear reactors, like the ESBWR [gepower.com] (near-term) and the PRISM [nrc.gov] (long-term).

Hopefully people will wake up to the benefits of Nuclear Energy. It is in fact our only hope for future energy demands.

In the USA, fear-mongering will ensure that new nukes aren't built for quite a while, if ever. It's gotten into the political system, and it is now almost impossible to get a new reactor built -- the red tape is unbelievable. This, despite the much less risky nature of modern designs. Even if one was built, the huge up-front costs of all that regulation makes them not particularly cost

GE manufacturers the "charging stations that the government is going to subsidize being installed all over the country. If there aren't enough electric cars on the roads, people are going to complain about their tax dollars going to subsidize the installation of these charging stations. By buying a bunch of electric vehicles, GE hopes to prime the pump for people to buy electric vehicles.

It's actually a parallel hybrid "with a twist." If the gasoline engine is running then it is (and must be) supplying mechanical energy directly to the wheels. However the gearing requires that the main electric motor must be driven at all times to provide vehicle motion - this is the hook GM uses to claim it's an EV+Extender and not a hybrid.

This is not correct. If the gasoline engine is running, which it only does if the battery is depleted or the vehicle is going over 70MPH, then some of the energy from the engine is supplied to the wheels.

Under normal, battery-charged conditions and under 70 MPH, the gasoline engine does not run at all.

For most folks who commute less than 20 miles per day (80% of the population, according to GM), the vehicle will always be on the battery.

There is nothing in my post that is incorrect, nor is there anything in my post that contradicts what you said.

You probably think I said something I didn't.

It is a parallel hybrid "with a twist." If you consider the Volt to be an EV simply because it can run in battery-only mode then the Prius is an EV because it, too, has a battery-only (aka Silent) mode.=Smidge=

Yes, there is. The last link in the summary even goes to a page with a diagram of the central planetary gear set. The engine can, and does, drive the wheels directly under certain conditions.

To quote said article:

"Once the Volt’s battery is depleted, the engine fires up and clutches to the generator to produce the power required to drive the car. Above 70 mph, when the generator couples to the ring gear, the engine gets a more efficient direct mechanical connection to the wheels."

What the poster said was correct. You are Wrong. If the car goes over a certain speed then the GAS engine kicks in and charges the batteries faster than the draw on them. In essence the car is running on gasoline then.

Now for all the problems of this car.1. You can get the same "gas" powered car for over 10k-20k less. 10k will buy a LOT of gas. I mean a freaking lot of gas.2. Nobody knows what the EXTRA cost of maintaining the Volt will be. This does not include the batteries, but just the extra cra

Let's put it this way: if you remove the ICE in a Volt, will it still run? Of course, with about a 40 mile range. Seems like an electric vehicle to me. Can you do that in a Prius? Not without a conversion kit. As I see it, as it is, the Volt is an electric vehicle with an ICE tacked on whereas the Prius is not.

Depends on where you are. In the Scandinavian regions, there is a huge tax break for electric vehicles. However, a Chevy Volt would not count as an electric vehicle there because it has an ICE that comes on automatically as part of normal operation. However, if they make a variant that forces the driver to manually turn on the ICE, then they will count it as an electric vehicle with a backup generator. There's one problem with the Volt though. The engine directly generates torque for the wheels. I wil

"Depends on where you are. In the Scandinavian regions, there is a huge tax break for electric vehicles. However, a Chevy Volt would not count as an electric vehicle there because it has an ICE that comes on automatically as part of normal operation."

ONLY if battery power is exhausted. You can have 100% gasoline-free operation if you don't travel more than 40 miles per charge.

It doesn't matter when the ICE turns on. It's a question of interpreting the laws that allow this tax break in these countries. The intent of the law was that if you have an all electric vehicle with a gas generator strapped to your roof for backup, it still counts as an electric vehicle. In series hybrids, this has generally been interpreted to mean that the ICE must be turned on manually.

The ICE is coupled at above 70 mph because it's more efficient to drive the wheels directly at that speed rather than indirectly via the battery and electric motor. That doesn't change the fact that the vehicle can still be used if the ICE is ripped out.

Marketing. The US market tends not to be particularly friendly to diesel engines. Even though the fuel efficiency of them is so much better. The other problem is that diesel fuel isn't always the easiest to get. It's getting easier, but it's not offered at every fuel station.

To be precise, the Chevy Volt was originally a Series Hybrid [wikipedia.org] that added a capability to add about 15% of total power output through a direct mechanical connection, because this turned out to be more efficient. So it's a combination between series hybrid and parallel hybrid which makes it a kind of hybrid of hybrids -- a meta-hybrid!

(The Volt could probably run just fine as a series hybrid, with most of its range, power, and efficiency if the direct mechanical linkage were disabled. In contrast, a Prius ca

This often occurs above 70 miles per hour (110 km/h) when the gasoline engine is almost always coupled for maximum efficiency helping the Volt to achieve its top speed of 101 miles per hour (163 km/h). The Volt also operates as a power-split or series-parallel hybrid

Yeah, but it's getting there and it's not that much more than what normal folks spend on a vehicle. Since plenty of vehicles sell for that, this ought to be a serious step towards affordable transportation. That being said, that is still more than a year's salary for a lot of people.

Let's be realistic here! It may not be a "pure" EV but the infrastructure is not here yet to support a pure EV. We are at the very start of a transition from gas stations to charging stations. Until charging stations can be found in most places at least a small gas engine to recharge the batteries is needed.

You're right. There is no infrastructure to support electric vehicles.

What we need is some kind of nation-wide distribution network for electrical power. That's probably decades away assuming you can find someone willing to spend the billions of dollars to install one.

Oh wait...

What you're missing: You charge your vehicle primarily at home - where your car spends the vast majority of its unused time anyway. Charging stations external to that are a bonus but not strictly required. For example you might have an exterior outlet on your office building you can use in lieu of a dedicated charging bollard.

If you're one of the people who think there must be an exact gas station analog in place for electric vehicles, you are wrong. The entire premise of EVs is that the "energy economy" they work in is completely different; distributed instead of centralized. Every outlet is a potential "gas station."=Smidge=

Why do you think the energy companies are all quickly getting Time of Use( ToU ) meters installed on everyones home? Very soon there will be a way for them to start increasing the price of electricity used to charge electric vehicles. They will come up with some cockamamie reason way and those running the regional public energy committees will fall for it. Just as they fell for the hydrogen economy crap the Bush Administration pedaled.

No, they are doing this so that customers can switch to hourly rated power. So peak power will be more expensive, but at night when most of our capacity goes unused lower priced power can be used to charge EVs. This will prevent them from having to build more power plants as the high peak prices will shift load to later in the day.

I had this at a previous home as my work hours meant I did most of my electric use during off peak hours. I saved a bundle.

BEVs are commuter cars, you don't drive cross-country in them but to work and back every day. Most people don't drive more than 75 miles a day even including side trips for errands. For most people having a car that can drive 200 miles on a tank of gas is overkill for their actual driving needs. For everything a BEV commuter can't handle there's rental cars or a second family vehicle. The car transportation system would be on the whole more efficient if we bought cars closer to our actual needs and shared (

I'm keeping statistics of my trips. Usually I average at 30 miles per day. However, about once per month I need to travel about 90 miles.

So I'd have to rent a car at least 1 time a month. That's not acceptable, because I'll be spending more on rent than on fuel for a conventional car for this whole month. I suspect that quite a lot of people have the same situation.

Besides, there's a problem with ROI. Right now it's cheaper to produce a 40 miles range-extended car. It will still require gasoline, but it wil

It's also well known that many people own two cars. My family owns two cars. My wife and I have analyzed our car usage and concluded that we could easily get by with one of our two cars having a limit of 100 miles. An EV with a range of 100 miles or more would be a viable choice for our family, as it would be for millions of others. SUVs and pickup trucks are a bad choice for many, but they're the right choice for some. Small cars don't work for some families, but they're a good choice for others. Just b

my house was built in 1954. it's a relatively new house, compared to many in the US and especially Europe. while many (if not most) of older houses have been renovated, not all have.

my house has had the power 'upgraded' several times. there is still substantial original wiring. if i were to get an EV, i'd have to redo the entire fuse box, put in a larger amperage master breaker, and re-wire the front side of my house in the process.

This is nothing new, so please don't pretend it's some unsolvable dilemma. People add large electric loads to homes now and they do it all the time. Hot tubs, pools, new garages and shops, welders, you name it. A level 2 charger for the Nissan Leaf is 14A at 220V and will charge the car in 8 hours. About the same load as a dryer or stove.

I can see a family with two cars getting one all-electric vehicle. Probably 90% of the driving my family does is within the round-trip range of an EV. But right now I'm not seeing a really mass-market EV. An EV should be cheaper to manufacture than a gasoline powered car if you compare the complexities of the drive systems. EV: Battery, electric motor, differential and final drive system. Gasoline engine: Battery, ignition system, fuel tank, fuel pumps, fuel injectors, air intake, air filter, intake manifold, pistons, crankshaft, valves, cam shaft, coolant pumps, radiator, coolant thermometer, exhaust pipes, EGR valves, muffler, catalytic converter, flywheel, clutch, transmission, differential and final drives. The number of moving parts in a gasoline engine that need lubrication is huge. In an electric motor there is one. Lithium batteries are somewhat exotic and expensive but so are the precious metals they put in your catalytic converter.

I think the manufacturers are happier selling you a hybrid vehicle with two engine systems and charging you more than a gasoline powered car instead of selling you an all electric vehicle and charging less. Or they'd rather make a pure EV that is so exotic they can charge Porsche prices for it, like the Tesla. The only possible exception coming soon is the Nissan Leaf. It'll be interesting to see how Nissan does with it.

Consider it this way, using the electric grid is the most effective use of energy transmission. By using large plants, we can use every trick that an engineer can conceive to wring the last watt out of fuel. So far, so good. But by combining the electrical storage potential of any hybrid, with a tuned engine for maximal efficiency gets the best of both worlds. It's easier to design to, also.
It's an old trick called co-generation, used in pulp and paper plants. Now, if we can store the "waste heat" for our

On the whole, I think this is good news. If this kind of large scale adoption is followed by other corporations, I wonder how long it will be before we begin to notice significantly reduced noise levels in urban areas? Should totally change the sounds of the city, hopefully for the better.

NG is currently commercial price is $6 / 1000cubic feet [doe.gov] for 1 million BTU's worth. Diesel is 2.39 [eia.gov] for 130,500BTU.so Diesel price is around 2* more expensive at commercial. Retail price (NG to your home) brings that down to Diesel 15% more expensive.

Diesel is way to expensive to run even a decent size business generator on much less a power plant.

Just slightly more expensive. Where I work is 100% diesel generator power, has been for the last 15 years, with several hundred employees running computers, welders, air conditioning, etc. The cost has worked out to about $.26/kwHr. My last home bill worked out to be $.24 / Kwhr when I divide the final bill by the electric used. Because my company also builds generators it does give a opportunity to test their generators. The previous job I had in the same area had much less reliable power from the

Here's a cite for you: The island I live on has (almost) all of it's power provided by RECO [recoroatan.com], using Wärtsilä [wartsila.com] generators (disregarding the very low adoption of PV and wind, and the couple of gas stations that run their own generators).

According to the first link, RECO burns 15,000 gallons of diesel a day providing the power for this island, according to the second, it's one of 1550 such power plants around the world (specificly using Wärtsilä generators.).

Only half as much CO2 if you get the power from fossil fuel generating plant. They are roughly twice as efficient as an internal combustion engine. Also, you are buying large and increasing amounts of power from British Columbia which is all zero emission Hydro-electric.

For the comparison to be fair, you have to take into account the subsidies that the oil industry receives, which are not insubstantial. (In sheer dollar terms, they dwarf the subsidies that go to alternative energies.) Actually most major industrial sectors have managed to lobby for subsidies of one kind or another (whether direct cash or tax breaks).

Also worth noting is that gas has a massive infrastructure currently in place. So even if electric vehicles are cheaper in the long-term, once we reach steady-state (hence a "good idea"), it may be that they are somewhat more expensive in the short-term, as we build up our infrastructure, manufacturing capacity, and know-how (things tend to get cheaper as we engineer them better and better). In such cases, the argument for government subsidies is that the government spends a small amount of money in the short-term, subsidizing an industry that will save the populace large amounts of money in the long-term.

You may disagree with that particular analysis, and think that EVs won't be a net gain in the long-term, but saying that good ideas don't need subsidies is short-sighted.